The Pyramid of Knowledge: Tracing the Roots of the Intellectual Background of the Florentine Accademia del Cimento

In the first page of the 1657’s diary of the Accademia del Cimento, Alessandro Segni, at the time secretary of the group of scholars, depicted twelve volumes stacked pyramidally. The author's name is inscribed on the edge of the books, except on the penultimate one, where only the words 'Nova Filosofia' appear. The authors are arranged in a sort of ideal progression of natural philosophy, starting with Aristotle, and ending with Galileo. The list that is thus configured encourages the refletion on the epistemological value of author-only lists, that in this case reveal how the academics of the Cimento perceived themselves and their activity. The talk proposed will focus on the reconstruction of the natural-philosophical background – especially in the meteorological field – of the circle of scholars, taking as a star ng point this peculiar “pyramid of knowledge”, to analyze then the various intellectual legacies in the space of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany during the seventeenth century.